Looters Of Tharn

Chapter 25

Blade's return with news of destroying the Looter machines set off a grand celebration. Only the fighting men and women of the people were now left in the camps around the New City, nearly three thousand of them. It was they who danced wildly up and down the streets, drank up what seemed like every drop of beer in Tharn, dragged each other off into deserted buts and sheltered places to make love. Blade saw Chara leading one of the lines of dancers, waving a sword in one hand and a beer cup in the other.

«They seem to think the war is already won,» said Blade as he watched the celebration from the roof of the King's House.

His son shrugged. «A great victory has certainly been won, as you yourself promised. They are happy about that, happy that now they can face the Looters on equal terms.»

«The terms will not be equal if in their pride and courage they forget what we have taught them,» said Blade quietly. «Even if they can remember, many of them will still die in the battle against the Looters.»

King Rikard smiled. «All the more reason for them to celebrate. For many of those down there this may be the last time they will ever make love, taste beer, dance with their friends. Would you deny them these last pleasures?»

Blade could hardly argue that point. In fact, it reminded him of Silora. He was Mazda, but that did not make him immortal or mean that tonight might not be his last chance to make love.

So he went off to the chamber where Silora lay, and soon they were locked around each other. They did not unwind until the light of dawn and the sound of drums and trumpets told them it was daylight and time to mount up and ride out.

Blade did not leave the New City on horseback. He and Chara and Silora rode in one of the war machines that formed a scouting line well out in front of the advancing people. Possibly the mercenaries would stay where they were, paralyzed by the shock of the bombing. It was even possible that they were right now marching through the dimension door, back to Konis. But Blade doubted it, and Silora doubted it even more.

«The Principal Technician of War is not a fool,» she said. «But he is stubborn enough to seem one. The mercenaries will fight, and fight hard. We must face that.»

That meant the Looter army would have to be found, in all the endless miles of plain. Three of the captured machines formed an aerial scouting line, radioing reports back to the fourth, which flew just above the center of the main army.

There was something strange in aerial reconnaissance for an Iron Age cavalry army. But Blade knew that the plains of Tharn would see even stranger sights before much longer. The coming battle would mix more ages and stages of weaponry and the military art than Blade would have believed possible.

It was a pity that no Home Dimension military historians were ever likely to hear of this battle. He would have liked to hear them trying to explain away all its apparent contradictions and impossibilities. He was not going to worry about those contradictions and impossibilities, however. He would worry about winning, and nothing else.

The Looters were easy to find and not hard to count. There were more than two thousand of them. An army of that size could not be hidden on the open plain even in camouflaged uniforms.

They advanced on a front of about two miles, with their main body in three columns. Behind them came a fourth column, most of which seemed to be unarmed. In that column were also three large machines — a command machine, a large cargo machine, and a gleaming silver ovoid shape.

«That fourth column will be mostly unarmed Peace Lords under guard. They are bringing them along so that their guards can aid the main force when the fighting starts.» That was Silora's guess.

She went on. «The Principal Technician of War doubtless rides in the command machine. The second probably carries ammunition and spare weapons. The oval one carries the machinery for creating the dimension door.»

«They can create it at will, from one side or the other?»

«Yes. But it needs a machine at each end to sustain it after it has been opened.»

God, what science Konis had, even now! And how little opportunity he was likely to have to examine the dimension door machine and try to discover some of its secrets. Lord Leighton's scientific curiosity would be frustrated, and that would not make his Lordship terribly happy.

Damn Lord Leighton's scientific curiosity and Lord Leighton too! He was in Home Dimension, not here in Tharn facing a battle for the life of the people, the life of his son's people, the lives of those he had helped once before and would help again. Blade knew what his first job was, and would worry about anything else he might be able to do when and if he had the time to do it.

Only three of the smaller war machines were visible, flying in a V-formation high above the Looter army. The technician wouldn't want to let his last possible air support wander off and be swallowed up by whatever monsters might be lurking beyond the flat horizon. None of the three paid any attention to Blade's machine.

After looking as long as he needed and getting as close as he dared, Blade swung his machine away into the sky. He saw that Silora's face was grimmer than it had been for some time.

«They have not come in the strength I hoped they would,» she said. «No more than half or a third of the mercenaries march against the people.»

As far as Blade was concerned that was quite all right. He would not care to try pitting the people against five or six thousand of the mercenaries. But he could see why Silora was unhappy. Even total victory for the People of Tharn today would still leave the mercenaries able to rule Konis and leave her forever an exile in Tharn.

The army of the people camped for the night about twenty miles from the Looters. They did not camp until the air scouts reported that the Looters were also settling in for the night. Neither Blade nor King Rikard wanted to risk a night attack by the mercenaries.

Blade and Silora had a tent to themselves, but it seemed stiflingly hot inside it. After an hour or so of desperately trying to get to sleep, they both went out and lay down on the grass to stare up at the star-filled sky. The cooler air and the peaceful stars soon sent both of them off to sleep.

The next morning Blade could see the Looters in their camp from a war machine only a few hundred feet up. They were less than ten miles away. Once again their three war machines floated high above them-and stayed there.

The army of the people moved out, three thousand cavalry, a hundred chariots, a dozen portable catapults. Some of the chariots and all four of the captured war machines carried loads of bombs, and practically every fighter had at least one or two grenades.

As the people trotted and rolled toward the enemy, a Looter war machine swept low over the head of the column. A hundred or so archers loosed futile arrows at it. That should be enough to give the Looters the impression of a typical undisciplined barbarian horde. Blade's plans depended on the Principal Technician of War continuing to despise his opponents until it was too late.

Within an hour the Looter army was in sight from the scouting line on the ground. Blade saw that so far his plan was working. As Silora had predicted, the Principal Technician was bringing a strong force of the mercenaries to Tharn, to fight it out on the ground. The battle would be terrible for both sides, but it could be a much greater victory for the people if they won.

The Looters were drawn up in an enormous square nearly a mile on a side. Most of the two thousand mercenaries formed the four sides of that square. Each side was a single line, with no more than one man every ten feet. In the center of the square was a small reserve, who doubled as guards for the Peace Lords and the three large machines. One of the war machines now floated only a few feet above the center of the square. Blade caught strangely brilliant sparkles of sunlight from the equipment of someone moving about on the rear platform.

«That will be the Principal Technician of War himself,» said Silora. «On days of battle he dresses in his most elegant uniform and equipment, including a wide belt studded with jewels. You see the sun sparkling on the jewels, I think.»

The technician might be a fop, but he also seemed to know his business. The great hollow square gave equal firepower on all sides. Even with only one man every ten feet, the automatic pellet rifles could slaughter anyone trying to close within a hundred yards. The grenade launchers that every tenth man carried could finish the job. Against a barbarian enemy able only to charge in wildly, the battle would have been won the moment the square was formed. But the people had done Mazda's bidding in training and arming themselves, and they were no longer that kind of barbarian enemy.

Blade watched from the rear platform of his machine as the people deployed, spreading out until they completely surrounded the square. The catapults were unloaded from their chariots and assembled. Then their crews carried them to just inside accurate range of the Looters and opened fire.

Just inside accurate range for the catapults was well beyond accurate range for the Looter's rifles. On full automatic they could hit anything within a hundred yards with enough pellets to rip it to pieces. Beyond that range things got more difficult. At two hundred yards they were doing well to hit a man, at three hundred yards it was almost hopeless unless they simply sprayed away on full automatic. The catapults were firing from a carefully calculated three hundred and twenty-five yards' range.

Even there they had pellets buzzing about their ears soon enough. But at long range the light pellets lost much of their speed and striking power. They could hardly kill or disable unless they hit a vital spot. All the catapult crews were encased from topknot to toe in teksin, iron, and boiled leather armor. Most of the pellets bounced off harmlessly, and those that didn't seldom did more harm than a wasp sting.

Meanwhile the catapult crews were shooting back, alternating three-foot arrows with expanding heads and explosive bombs. When the arrows hit a mercenary they tore through his armored vest as though it were made of paper. When a bomb landed on a mercenary there wasn't enough of him left to put on a stretcher, while the men on either side of him were likely to be out of action for at least the rest of the day.

Many of the arrows missed, many of the bombs didn't explode. But all of them kept the mercenaries shooting with one eye on their target and one eye on what might be coming down on them. Their shooting was enthusiastic-the rattle of their rifles soon became almost continuous. But its accuracy left a good deal to be desired.

After each few shots the catapult crews picked up their weapons and ammunition and ran fifty yards or so. They lost men, but each time they lost someone the gap was filled in a moment.

On and on went the duel as the sun rose higher in the sky and began to bake the plain with all its usual fury. Eventually the mercenaries got tired of standing under the shower of bombs and arrows and blazing away almost impotently at their distant enemies. A portion of one side of the square surged forward at a dead run, firing from the hip as they ran, trying to close to effective range.

Instantly a score of chariots and ten times that many horsemen swept forward. The chariots swung around between the mercenaries and the catapults, shielding them. The catapult crews threw their weapons into the chariots and scrambled on the backs of the chariot horses, while the archers in the chariots rained arrows on the approaching mercenaries. Then the chariots rolled away across the plain, rapidly drawing out of range. The cavalry swept across between them and the mercenaries, and a blizzard of arrows answered the enemy's massed rifle fire. A good many horses went down and a good many saddles were suddenly empty. But out of more than a hundred mercenaries, no more than forty were left on their feet. All of those forty ran-the sensible ones back toward the square, the brave or foolish ones on toward the people. None of the second group got very far or lived very long. Then cavalry and chariots and catapults were all drawing rapidly out of range of even the longest and wildest shots from the square.

In any land, in any age, in any dimension, the man who rides a horse can still move faster than the man who walks on his own feet. At least he can when the land is flat, and the plain where Blade had chosen to give battle was as flat as a tabletop.

The mercenaries were tough, well-trained soldiers. Their courage was undoubted, their weapons were on the whole well-chosen and effective. But they had not fought a well-disciplined enemy of any sort for more than twenty years.

They had never fought a disciplined army of horsemen, neither in Konis nor in any of the dimensions they had looted.

This was a gap in their military education that Blade was determined to fill. In fact, he was determined to fill it so thoroughly that most of the mercenaries would not survive the lesson.

The duel of catapult and bow against rifle sputtered on around the square, occasionally flaring up savagely. The next time the mercenaries tried to charge the catapults on foot, the people's cavalry got a little out of hand. Instead of retreating, they charged the flanks of the advancing mercenary line. If they had tried to charge it from the front, they would have been butchered. As it was they hit it on either end, where only four or five mercenaries could fire accurately, and that wasn't enough. The butchery was mutual. The mercenaries chopped the people out of their saddles at point-blank range moments before pain-maddened horses trampled them into the ground. Then in full sight of hundreds of their comrades and the technician himself, the surviving mercenaries all turned and ran. All their discipline and courage could not hold them in place against the ancient terror of a wall of advancing horsemen.

For a moment it looked as though the whole battle would explode into a mutual butchery. The three war machines of the Looters surged forward to the threatened side of the square and hung in the air just above the line of infantry. Blade's hands tightened on the railing of his own machine. If the technician panicked and unleashed the purple rays-

But the technician's nerve or commonsense held firm. The three war machines slipped back inside the square. Two of them began ferrying reinforcements and ammunition out to the weakened side of the square. The technician's own machine rose into its usual place, to hang grim and gleaming in the sky above the center of the square.

By noon Blade felt as if the battle had been going on for a week. In the three hours since the first shot had been fired, the people had lost more than two hundred men and women and slightly more horses, as well as half a dozen chariots and two catapults. But the mercenaries had lost between three and four hundred men dead or out of action for the day. They had also fired off an astounding quantity of ammunition.

That was the Looters' vital spot, their ammunition supply. A good part of their supply must have gone up with the machines destroyed in the atomic-bomb explosion. Now they could have no more than they carried on their backs and was stored in the remaining machines. When this supply was exhausted, there was no more ammunition closer than the other side of the dimension door.

Now it was time to offer the Principal Technician of War what would look like a chance to score a solid victory against the enemy. It would look like a victory cheap in ammunition, a victory solid enough to restore the spirits of men who must be losing heart from their casualties and the broiling sun. To win such a victory the technician would almost certainly be willing to weaken his square, confident that at least the enemy would not charge home against an unbroken line of mercenaries.

That confidence would be misplaced.

Fifty or a hundred at a time, most of the people's cavalry drifted around to one side of the square and massed there. Before long two-thirds of the people's mounted fighters were there, under the command of King Rikard himself and Anyara. Under the eyes of their king, son of Mazda, they would maintain the discipline that had been hammered into them. Meanwhile Blade would be free to be wherever his understanding of the Looters' machines was most needed.

The massed cavalry galloped forward, pulled to a stop within bowshot, fired their arrows, took heavy fire and heavy casualties in return, then retreated. But they did not retreat at a gallop. They retreated at a walk, a slow pace not beyond the reach of a man on foot. They seemed to be flaunting themselves in the faces of the mercenaries, flaunting a willingness to meet them at close quarters, man to man, throwing caution and even commonsense to the hot winds blowing over the battlefield.

It looked like folly. It looked like such folly that the Principal Technician of War swallowed the bait dangled before him even faster than Blade had expected. The war machines began shuttling ammunition out to the side of the square facing the people's cavalry. Mercenaries from the other three sides began walking across the square to join their comrades in the great attack. The vision of a smashing blow at the enemy was obviously dancing in front of every man in that square.

Blade looked down from the platform of his machine to the opposite side of the square, where some two hundred horsemen and all the surviving chariots were assembled. Then he shouted an order to Chara at the machine's controls. Silora clung to him as the machine turned and headed toward the chariots.

Chara landed the machine and Blade and Silora both leaped out and scrambled into the four-horse chariot reserved for them. All of the other chariots were drawn by three horses instead of the usual two, and carried three fighters instead of the usual two. Each fighter was heavily protected and carried a bow and a sword. In each chariot was a box of grenades and in the chariots of the third line each man had a bomb and a captured Looter rifle or pistol. The fighters in the third line were the ones most likely to get all the way to the center of the square and need the extra firepower. Blade hadn't expected to have so many Looter weapons, but he wasn't going to turn down an unexpected stroke of good luck.

Blade's own chariot was in the center of the second line. Quickly he pulled on his gear. When he was finished, he carried a bow, a sword, two knives, a Looter rifle, a pistol, and a grenade launcher. He wore an iron helmet, a teksin vest, and leather boots and breeches. He looked like a pacifist's nightmare and would have felt ridiculous if he had not been so keyed-up.

Blade gave Silora another minute to finish putting on her gear. Then he took out the signal baton, extended it, and waved it three times over his head. Trumpets and drums sounded from both the chariots and the cavalry, and the whole mass began to move forward.

Five hundred yards from the square the screen of cavalry in front of the chariots parted to either side and Blade had a clear view ahead. The enemy line was still there, but it was perilously thin. There was at most one man for every thirty yards. The technician had not contracted the square to save men. He was making the fatal mistake of trying to hold all his ground.

The first line of chariots came within range and the mercenaries opened fire. A chariot and horses made an enormous target. Horses began to go down, sending chariots bouncing wildly into the air, hurling their fighters free. But there were too many chariots coming too fast, and too few mercenaries with too little ammunition. Some of them simply turned and ran as arrows from the surviving chariots whistled about their ears. Others turned tail when they ran out of ammunition. Some stayed and died, changing magazines or still firing. But over a space of five hundred yards there were suddenly no more mercenaries at all. The seventy surviving chariots and the whole two hundred cavalry swept through that gap, trampling the corpses of both sides into bloody paste, thundering onward toward the heart of the mercenaries' square.

Around Blade the thunder of hooves and the shrill war cries from four hundred throats drowned out the roar of gunfire from the far side of the square. Beside him Silora was screaming like a banshee, beside herself with excitement. He knew she was screaming, for her mouth was wide open, but he could not hear a sound she was making.

The people raced toward the center of the square. Its three machines loomed higher and higher as they drew closer. Looking ahead through the dust, Blade saw the mercenary guards scrambling into a small square around the three machines and the mass of Peace Lords. Their rifles began spitting pellets at the oncoming people. The first line took the full blast of their fire. Blade saw one chariot flip over at a full gallop, bouncing fifty feet into the air. Its three fighters sailed out and crashed to the ground. Two lay still, the third was still moving feebly when a chariot of the second line ran right over him, its driver unable to swing it clear in time. Hooves and wheels and the slashing knives in the hubs of the wheels all did their work, and the bloody thing left behind did not move again.

To press home a cavalry charge against automatic weapons is impossible in theory and always costly in practice. But when there are a lot of cavalry and not very many automatic weapons it becomes possible. The first line of chariots was almost gone now, and the second line was beginning to show ragged holes as the Looters shifted their fire. A chariot in the third line disintegrated in a blast of flame and smoke, and flying fragments mowed down two other chariots. Blade saw the Looter square disintegrating in its turn as the mercenaries on the disengaged sides ran around to reinforce their comrades who were facing the oncoming people.

Then suddenly the whole mass of Peace Lords standing beyond the winking guns of the mercenaries exploded into action. They had seen the mercenaries too distracted to keep watch on them. They took advantage of that distraction to strike, most of them unarmed but all of them burning with rage and a desire for vengeance.

It was another scene of butchery on both sides. Mercenaries shot down half a dozen Peace Lords, then died under stamping feet and clawing hands and flashing knives. Others kept their faces toward the oncoming people and died with arrows in their throats as they shot their attackers out of their chariots. None of the mercenaries could look in two directions at once and so all of them died in not much more than a minute.

By frantically waving the signal baton, Blade was able to keep the people's charge from crashing straight into the Peace Lords. Blade's driver pulled the chariot to a stop just beyond the Peace Lords, between them and the three machines. Seen close up, the command machine looked identical to the one Blade had fought in Miros. The cargo machine was still a great featureless box. The machine carrying the dimension door was so highly polished that the sunlight reflected from it was almost blinding.

Several men scrambled out of the chariots of the third line, carrying sacks of bombs under their arms. They ran toward the door machine, zigzagging to make themselves harder targets. They were running to place their bombs beside the machine and destroy the Looters' road home.

No one fired at them. But twenty feet from the door machine they seemed to run into a solid wall. They staggered and began to crumple, sparks flashing around them. As they fell their bombs exploded with tremendous crashes. Black smoke rolled up, concealing the door machine for a moment, and fragments of iron, armor, and bodies flew in all directions.

Blade turned to Silora and grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand, pointing at the Peace Lords with the other. «Quick. Get over to them, tell them that we are friends. Also ask if anyone can help us break through the electrical field into the dimension door machine. Everybody else should arm themselves from the cargo machine or the bodies and then run for it.»

Silora nodded and leaped to the ground. As she began to run, a shadow swept over Blade. A moment later he heard the rattle of a Looter rifle. Silora stopped dead, then staggered and turned around to face Blade as she went down on her knees. From belly to throat she was nothing but chewed and bloody flesh. A final bullet had smashed her jaw, and as she tried to speak it sagged downward in a ruin of bone and blood. Her eyes met Blade's for a final second, then she collapsed face-down in the dust.

An icy coldness filled Blade. He looked upward, to see a Looter war machine sailing over the Peace Lords. On the rear platform knelt the Principal Technician of War, his jeweled belt flashing in the sun, other flashes coming from the muzzle of his rifle as he fired into the Peace Lords.

With deadly precision Blade loaded his captured grenade launcher, raised it to his shoulder, sighted on the war machine's hatch, and fired. The grenade arched through the air and vanished exactly where Blade had aimed it.

The technician could think quickly enough when his own skin was in danger. He plunged head-first off the platform, turned a somersault in midair, and landed on hands and knees halfway between Blade and the Peace Lords. His rifle landed beside him. He was reaching for it when Blade snatched a throwing spear from under the seat of the chariot and hurled it with the same deadly accuracy as the grenade. The technician was just rising to his feet when the spear took him in the neck, driving clear through from one side to the other and bursting out on the other side. He finished rising, stood erect for a moment, then went over backward. He made a neater corpse than Silora once he had stopped thrashing around, but he was just as dead.

Meanwhile the grenade went off inside the war machine. The hatch flew off its hinges, smoke and flame shot out of the turret, and the machine wobbled and lurched in the air. Then it nosed down and plunged toward the door machine. It struck the electrical field in an explosion of sparks, then drove through the last twenty feet to crash into the metal with a terrible clang. It bounced like a stone- skipping on a pond, sailed on a hundred feet farther, and thudded to the ground in a cloud of smoke.

Blade shook his head. The glistening metal of the door machine showed no sign of damage from the impact of the falling war machine, not a dent or a scratch. If it was that strong the people's explosives wouldn't do it much harm even if they could be dropped close enough to it.

Meanwhile, the dimension door was forming, just as Silora had described it. A great milky sphere appeared in the air a hundred yards beyond the door machine, as its power was focused. The sphere seemed to wobble and pulsate, as though it were a balloon tied to the earth by a cord, and glowed with an inner light. It looked both beautiful and monstrous, but Blade remembered from Silora's description that it would be some time before the door was open between Tharn and Konis.

The rattle of mercenary rifles broke into his thoughts. He turned and saw half a dozen figures in the open door of the command machine, all blazing away. Blade picked up the grenade launcher and was loading it again when several of the people got in their blows first. Trailing smoke, their grenades sailed through the air, two of them straight into the command machine's door. Smoke and flame erupted half a dozen times in as many seconds and bodies and pieces of bodies fell smoking out of the murk. Then people and Peace Lords together were running frantically toward the command machine. Blade leaped from the chariot and joined them in time to be only a few seconds behind the leaders in reaching the machine.

The battle in the dark, smoke-filled corridors of the command machine was still another butchery. Blade remembered guns roaring in his ears, strangling one mercenary with his bare hands, stamping on the chest of another until the ribs caved in, being grazed by pellets in half a dozen places. But that was all he remembered between the moment he entered the machine and the moment he stood looking, down at an open locker. In that locker lay another atomic bomb.

Calculations dashed through Blade's mind like the people's charging cavalry. Here was a weapon to destroy the dimension door and perhaps even destroy the mercenaries on the other side of it, in Konis. Blade had given up hope of doing that for a while. Now he felt his heart leap up at this new chance. Silora was beyond help, but not beyond vengeance, and this was the best vengeance he could offer to her valiant memory.

He grabbed one of the people and shouted in his ear. «Run outside, take the signal baton from my chariot, and signal one of our war machines to come here. Run!»

He would have to move fast, before the door opened completely and more mercenaries perhaps came streaming into Tharn through it, or the people in the door machine realized what he was doing. He knelt to inspect the bomb, then ran outside, shouting for a dozen strong men. As fighters crowded around him, he noticed three of the captured Looter machines floating in above the chariots. The fourth was just landing almost beside the command machine. The hatch opened and Chara scrambled out. Good, sensible Chara. The four machines should keep the mercenaries at a safe distance while he finished the job.

There were crushed feet and broken arms as they hustled the bomb outside, but in five minutes it was safely inside Chara's machine. Again Blade knelt beside it, working furiously but carefully to arm it. He set the fuse for ten minutes from the moment the timer began counting, then ran a length of teksin cord from the fuse to the inside handle of the hatch. Now if anyone opened the hatch all the way, the cord would pull tight, setting off the bomb instantly. That was his insurance against curious mercenaries in Konis.

After setting the booby-trap he stuck his head out through the hatch for a moment. Good. The other three machines had already lifted out, Peace Lords jammed shoulder to shoulder on the platforms and clinging to the turrets as well. Others were scrambling into chariots and some of the more athletic were climbing up behind the cavalrymen on their horses. As fast as each chariot or horse was loaded, the driver or rider turned it about and headed away across the plain as fast as it would go. Chara stood on the machine's platform, urging everybody on with shouts and yells. In one hand she waved the Principal Technician of War's jeweled belt, in the other she waved a Looter rifle. She waved it so wildly that Blade ducked back inside in case she accidentally fired it off. As he did, he saw two men loading Silora's body into a chariot.

Chara sprang down to the ground at a word from Blade. He lifted the machine into the air and turned it until the shimmering milky sphere that was the dimension door was centered in the forward screen. Then he gave it a small amount of forward speed, ducked through the half-open hatch, then closed it solidly behind him. He took a final careful look at the dimension door. At least he would be able to tell Lord Leighton what the damned thing looked like. The machine was perfectly on course. Then he took a quick look at the ground slipping past ten feet below, swung himself over the railing, and dropped.

He landed harder than one ankle could really take. But he closed his mind to the stab of pain and sprinted toward the chariots. His own was there, one of only half a dozen left. All the cavalry was gone, and so were all the Peace Lords. He leaped in just as his ankle gave up the struggle, sprawling on his face on the floor of the chariot. The driver needed no orders, but whipped up the horses. The chariot swung about and began to roll.

As Blade pulled himself to his feet he saw a Looter war machine sail low overhead. It was heading for the dimension door. As Blade watched, the door ceased to be shimmering and milky, and showed a clear view of rocks and grass and buildings rising beyond the grass. The door was open and through it he was looking into Konis. Among the buildings Blade saw a polished metal oval gleaming-the machine that kept open the door from the other end.

The first Looter war machine plunged through the door while Blade's bomb-carrier was still a hundred yards away. Blade's wobbled in the disturbed air behind the other and swung off course. For a moment it looked as if it would slide past the door. Then some force flowing from the door itself caught it, steadied it, guided it smoothly and surely through the door. Blade mentally uncrossed his fingers. Now his work was done, and there was nothing left but to wish for good luck and fast horses to get clear in a hurry. The bomb could be no more than five minutes from going off, less if the mercenaries in Konis got curious.

It was less. The chariots had gone no more than another two hundred yards when the heat and the light of the sun itself seemed to burst into Tharn. For one split second white incandescence gushed through the dimension door. Then the door died, leaving only a fire that now had no beginning and seemingly no end.

The flame licked out and caught the dimension door machine. The metal blackened and buckled and peeled. Something exploded inside and the vast machine heaved itself into the air. It rose high enough to turn end over end before it came down, trailing smoke and flame. It came down squarely on the cargo machine, crumpling it inward. How much ammunition was left in that machine Blade didn't know. He only knew the size of the explosion that followed, as a sheet of flame blotted out the whole scene behind him.

Bits of metal scythed down two of the chariot horses. They screamed and fell, tangling the other two. Blade clung to the chariot as it leaped into the air with a corkscrewing motion. It was still in the air when the blast wave hit. Blade's grip on the chariot failed, and he spun helplessly through the air, to crash down on the ground and smash himself into blackness.

The first things Blade saw when he could see again were two faces bending over him, both wearing concerned expressions. One face was Chara's, disfigured by a massive bruise that covered most of one cheek. The other was his son's. King Rikard's red gold hair was matted with blood, sweat, and the filth of a long day's battle. But he and Chara both smiled as they saw Blade's eyes flicker open.

«Have we won?» was the first question that came to Blade.

The others both nodded. «We could not have won much more thoroughly than we have,» said the king. «When the explosions came, it seemed that the mercenaries lost their courage. Many of them tried to surrender or run. They did not succeed. Others, who still had ammunition for their weapons, turned their weapons on themselves. Most of the mercenaries are dead by now, and those who are not dead now will mostly be dead before darkness comes.»

«How long have I been out?» was Blade's next question. He was taking an inventory of his aches and pains as he did so. His ankle was swelling, his head ached, he was bruised and scraped all over, and his chest felt as though a ballet troupe had been dancing on it in logging boots. Also there were gaps where two teeth had been.

«Nearly three hours,» said King Rikard. «If you had not been breathing we would have thought you dead, and that would have been a grief to all of us. We have already lost many of the people this day, for the mercenaries fought well until they lost their courage. More than six hundred of the people will not see tomorrow's sun rise, and some of those hurt will not see many more. Anyara is among the dead.»

«I join you in mourning her. Tharn owes her much.»

«Yes. There is another whom Tharn owes much, also.»

«Silora?»

«Yes. Her body is safe in the same tent where Anyara already lies.» He hesitated. «Father, I speak in this for all those who doubted Silora, including myself. It is a grief to me that I doubted her, and a greater grief to me now that I cannot apologize to her. But there is something that may still be done. Will you accept that she lie in the same tomb with the Beloved Zulekia?»

For a moment Blade felt his eyes watering with more than fatigue and dust. Then he nodded. «I accept that; I accept it gladly.» He sat up, realized that his bones would not fall apart if he moved, and stood up. For a moment he had to brace himself on his son's shoulder, then stood alone.

«Let us get back to our people.»

As King Rikard predicted, the last of the fighting died down before nightfall. There was not a live mercenary anywhere in sight, and cavalry patrols armed with captured guns were on the prowl to make sure that those who had run away kept on running until they dropped dead.

More than two hundred thoroughly confused and frightened Peace Lords were prisoners-or guests. They weren't quite sure which, even after Blade assured them that they would be welcome in Tharn and find good homes, freedom, and useful work there. No doubt he looked like one more dusty and blood-spattered barbarian to them. He could hardly tell them of his real origins, however.

But Blade knew the Peace Lords would come around in time, and be a valuable aid to Tharn in its groping back to civilization. There would be problems getting them settled in, but nothing that his son and the council could not solve. What Tharn needed Mazda for had been done this day, and would not have to be done again.

Blade spent some time in the tent where Anyara and Silora lay. They had washed Silora's face and then bound and covered her so that her wounds and mutilations did not show. The pale face with the long eyelashes might have been sunk in sleep. Yes, it was a good thought his son had, letting Silora lie in the same tomb with Zulekia. Whatever happened in Konis now, Silora would never go home. But at least she would not be forgotten here in Tharn, among the people she had fought for and died helping to save.

After a while Blade went out again into the camp. One of the rare plains thunderstorms was moving in from the west. The stars were vanishing overhead, and lightning flickered eerily along the horizon.

Some of the younger men and women who still had the strength were dancing among the tents. Why not? thought Blade. They are alive; the Looters are destroyed; Tharn is safe. Enough reason for anyone to celebrate. Then he saw who was leading the line of dancers as it snaked in and out among the tents.

It was Chara, wearing nothing but the technician's jeweled belt around her waist. The jewels sparkled and her bare oiled skin seemed to glow in the light from the campfires. She was magnificent, and suddenly completely irresistible.

Blade stepped forward and reached out to take her free hand. Her eyes met his, with a light in them showing that she shared his thoughts. Together they would seek out warmth and life, drive away the day's memories of death and all the ghosts that still seemed to be hanging over the battlefield. She drifted away from the dance, and hand in hand they started for his tent.

The first drops of rain spattered down on the camp as they ducked into the tent. As Blade took the belt in both hands, to draw it off from Chara's waist, thunder exploded outside, as loud as any of the battle noises that day.

In the same moment Blade felt pain and another sort of thunder explode inside his head. He staggered, partly with the pain, partly with surprise at the realization of what was happening. Lord Leighton's computer was calling him back across the unknown, back to England. His hands tightened on the belt. He saw Chara's eyes widen, heard her say, «Mazda, are you-?» Then the thunder in his ears and the thunder in his head drowned her out. She faded from view, the tent followed, then there was nothing around him but a vast dim grayness and a steep slope plunging endlessly down into the grayness.

He ran fast down the slope-he had to run, or fall down head over heels. He ran so fast that it was a while before he noticed that the surface under his feet was level. He slowed down. As he slowed, he saw two lights in the grayness ahead. They became brighter, took shape, became Lord Leighton and J. He slowed to a walk and strode toward them, holding the belt in one hand. He raised it high, as though saluting them, and spoke.

«I returned to Tharn. I saw my son, King of Tharn.»

His voice faded away. So did Lord Leighton and J. Then the grayness itself turned black.